The invention relates to a system and method for sharing, broadcasting, and/or publishing information by a user from a location in real-time and allowing one or more users near that location to directly respond to and directly communicate with the sharing, broadcasting, and/or publishing user.
Crisis mapping is the real-time gathering, display, and analysis of data during a crisis, such as a natural disaster and social or political conflict, e.g., violence, protests, etc. Projects involving crisis mapping allow a large number of people, including crisis responders and the general public, to contribute information either remotely or from the site of the crisis. In that regard, crisis mapping encourages the public to engage and report information related to the crises, which can improve data management. Crisis mappers may work with data derived from various sources and can be analyzed for different purposes. Tools for crisis mapping include mobile and web-based applications, participatory maps and crowdsourced event data, aerial and satellite imagery, geospatial platforms, advanced visualizations, live simulations, and computational and statistical models.
“Ushahidi,” for example, is open-source software that gathers data from crowdsourcing tools, such as SMS, e-mail, and social media platforms, and allows users to manage, survey, and respond to a situation. Another example is the “Sahana Free and Open Source Disaster Management System,” which is an emergency management and disaster preparedness software that aims to provide web-based disaster management applications, such as an online bulletin board of missing and found people, a tracking tool to capture information about the places where each organization is active and the ranges of services being provided, a shelter registry to keep track of location and basic data of shelters in the region, inventory management, and a situation awareness tool to allow people to add information and collaboratively capture the current disaster situation. Moreover, “PulsePoint” is a mobile phone application that uses the current location of a user and alerts the user if someone nearby is suffering from a heart attack and is in need of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
The above-described crisis mapping tools, however, are limited and disadvantageous in numerous ways. First, the primary source of information originates from the people that merely witness the crisis or incident (typically via social media platforms) and not from the people who are directly affected by the crisis or incident. It is also difficult to organize the numerous amounts of data and information received from the social media platforms, determine where the victims are located, and determine how to specifically help those victims. Second, the benefit of crisis mapping tools is limited by the people subscribed to the crisis mapping services and/or the limited number of people certified and approved by the services to render assistance. Similarly, requesting assistance through social media platforms is not only limited to the user's network of friends and its size, but helpful only if those friends are near the location of the user. Third, users are required to download applications or sign-up for the crisis mapping services before use, which is a severe limitation for users who have not downloaded the applications or have signed up when a crisis or incident actually occurs. Moreover, crisis mapping tools are typically used only for urgent situations.